Dhalsim

Context

Dhalsim is one of the classic, famous characters in the landmark series of brawling video games Street Fighter. He appeared all the way back in 1991, in SF2.

Beyond his fame, he has the advantage of being from India – an oddly under-represented population in Western genre fiction. Furthermore, his odd abilities are a rare mix of mysticism, flexibility, combat prowess and of course roasting this with his divine flames. He has a certain flair, shall we say.

Base Of Operations: A small unnamed village off the coast of the Ganges River in India.

Height: 5’10” Weight: 106 lbs.

Eyes: White and without pupils Hair: None

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Powers and Abilities

Dhalsim has been a devoutly religious practitioner of yoga and loyal to his god Agni all his life. He has gained a number of body control powers through this such as:

Incredible flexibility.

The ability to stretch his limbs great distances.

The ability to both float and glide through the air.

Aand the most obvious and powerful ability, to call upon the mystic flames of Agni and thus breath fire.

He is also quite skilled in matters of the occult and maintaining his pet elephants, as well as a world class martial artist.

History

Street Fighter Zero 2

An illness has hit his village. Thus, Dahlsim is street fighting in order to afford medicine for his fellow villagers. That’s why the villagers and Sally are thanking Dhalsim in his ending.

He dislikes the violence he must do for good, but his wife assures him that he has saved and helped many people.

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Street Fighter Zero 3

The yoga master, Dhalsim, fights for his family and for the poor. The increasingly evil energy forces him to decide that one day he will renounce the root of his power. He might have met Rose and tried to dissuade her from taking M. Bison on, alone.

He probably met Cammy and played a part in making her realize her self-consciousness during their brief meeting.

Street Fighter 2

As shown by his new ending in SF2 Revival, he DID enter the SF2 tournament to help go after Shadaloo and win money to feed his son. At any rate, after the SF2 tournament, he went back to his loving family.

Street Fighter 4

He also entered the Street Fighter 4 tournament for similar reasons as above.

Where Is He Nom

Dhalsim’s quit street fighting after SF4. He finally decided to renounce his power, after all. He’s probably living a happy life with his family, now.

Description

Dhalsim is a gaunt, thin creepy-looking Indian man with pupils-less eyes and a shaved head. He typically dresses in the most humble of clothes only a pair of ripped up trunks bound by a rope. He also wears oversized bracelets and anklets as well as sporting some unusual body paint.

He also wears three skulls on his necklace. As creepy as this may sound they are the skulls of three children who died from famine and disease that he could not prevent and he wears them as a reminder what will happen to his village should he fail.

Personality

Dhalsim is a devoutly caring humanitarian who is devoted to his family, village, and of course his patron god Agni. He tries to make the world a better place and abhors violence. Dhalsim is an extreme pacifist and will never enter killing combat. He is most likely to try to end any violent confrontation in the least violent way.

He only participated in the Street Fighter tournament to keep buy food and medicine for his village and even then he is still reluctant to use violence and wishes to use his divine flames to try to purify other souls and end fights with the least amount of bloodshed.

Quotes

(After seeing her meditating husband burst into flames)
Sally: “Dear !”
Dhalsim: “There’s no need for concern. This is a marvel of yoga, a fabricated blaze borrowed from the power of the fire god Agni. It’s alright ! Utilizing this power, opponents won’t be injured more than is necessary, I can likely battle to win.”
Sally: “Your beliefs are surely the proper ones.”
Dhalsim: “If they could this time be continued as fighting techniques for the world battle championship, a lifetime of idleness in India can be overwhelmed with a monetary prize to be obtained.”

DC Universe History

Dhalsim can probably be dropped right in as is as there’s next to nothing happening in India anyway. He could also easily be written into a various mystical campaigns given his origins.

Air Walk may only be used for him to hover (read meditate) off the ground.

Detect (evil) has a +10 range bonus as well as the discerning bonus.

Flame Being requires extreme concentration and does not allow him to take any other actions other than free actions while performing it. It also takes an unspecified amount of time for him to go into meditation to activate (likely at least a few minutes). Given the description and the only known instance of him doing it is in the quote above when he talks to his wife it may very well be a ritual of some sort and not an innate power at all. For obvious reason he won’t be using this ability in combat anytime soon either.

Flame Projection is mystically linked and has the rapidly diminishing limitation (-2 APs of EV for every one AP of distance it travels). Dhalsim also choose to have an area effect bonus if he uses the no range version of it. In fact if he uses either Adrenaline Surge of HPs to enhance the blast then he MUST use it at no range with area effect. Flame Projection is also nonlethal.

Flame Projection may only be used on people or objects with mystical attributes. As flames are said to mystically burn away all evil impurities at the GMs digression they could do more damage to villains and less to heroes.

Gliding is always on in the game. (He always slowly floats back down after he jumps.) This may or may not be the case outside the ring. Feel free to use your own discretion as to whether or not gliding is always on although if you use the slightly more power EX version keep in mind that with 4 APs of gliding he’s going to be in the air for a while.

Stretching only applies to his limbs. Dhalsim may only receive the RV bonus from stretching if he blocks (substitutes his Martial Arts for RV) or takes an attack that specifically targets one or more of his limbs.

Stretching does not provide the normal bonuses to Grappling/Wrestling.

On a further note his ending seems to imply that he’s a lot closer to achieving Nirvana or the spiritual oneness that he’s been training for.

EX Series stats

Dhalsim was also slightly more powerful in the EX series. Up Adrenaline Surge to 05 and it also works with Gliding, up Gliding to 04, and Teleport to 05. He also had a new move called Yoga Catch which allowed him to stretch his arms out and grow his hands to grapple opponents. (Growth: 03, limited to his hands but giving him the normal STR and RV benefits for Grappling/Wrestling purposes). Flame Projection was slightly lower (06).

SNK versus Capcom (aka SVC Chaos) stats

Dhalsim’s Gliding was upped to 06 and Adrenaline Surge worked with it. Flame Projection was also a 06 here as well.